Dubai’s popularity with international leisure, business visitors continues to rise: 4th most visited global city

Dubai’s popularity with international leisure, business visitors continues to rise: 4th most visited global city

Dubai’s ongoing efforts to position itself as a premier leisure and business hub have resulted in growing visitor numbers to the city, as well as higher rankings on various global traveller and meeting indexes. This week, global payments giant MasterCard announced that Dubai has risen to fourth position out of 132 top destinations for international travellers in the MasterCard Global Destination Cities Index, behind London, Paris and Bangkok, representing a one-place rise since 2014 figures. Overall, Dubai has risen from eighth position in 2012, and MasterCard predicts that the emirate will welcome almost 14.3 million international visitors in 2015, with 5.7 international overnight visitors per city resident. Official figures released by Dubai Tourism in May of this year showed that the emirate welcomed 13.2 international overnight visitors in 2014.